Namie and Seiji knew about Mika’s situation, but neither of them made much of an effort to argue for her. In fact, Namie saw it as an opportunity to kick a downed rival.
“Seiji, any woman who would abandon her friends is trash. Especially if she chooses a moment like this to admit it, hoping that she’ll get an easy chance at forgiveness. You should break up with her soon.”
“What about you, Sis?”
“I don’t have to worry about that, because I don’t have friends!”
“Well, at least you’re thinking positively.”
✦ ✦ ✦
As she listened to the others talk, Anri found that she accepted their arguments much easier than she’d expected.
Anri’s image of Mika Harima was of a person who could do just about anything. If you took away the stalkerish side of her personality, she really did fit Anri’s mental image of a perfect human being.
The revelation that she also knew about Saika did not produce a particularly powerful shock to Anri. Nor was she stunned that Mika knew about Saika and had chosen to put herself at a distance.
She chose Seiji Yagiri, not Anri Sonohara.
That was an honest statement.
Anri knew that if it came down to it, Mika would prioritize Seiji’s life over her own. So it wasn’t Anri’s call whether to forgive her or not. That just didn’t matter.
There was only one worry on Anri’s mind.
She looked at Mika, her red eyes flashing, and asked, “Um…are you sure…you’re not afraid of me?”
Mika beamed at her and said firmly, “Listen, Anri.”
“Yes?”
“The next time you ask me that, I’m going to get angry.”
That was enough for Anri.
This was the girl who’d saved her in the past when she was being bullied. The arrival of Seiji had made it seem as if that girl had gone for good, but here she was in the van right now.
The world within the picture frame in Anri’s mind suddenly shook. She realized with a start that the van was with her, on this side of the frame. Or perhaps it was the size of the frame itself that had just widened.
“Thank you… Thank you…so much…!” she said to the group of them. Big drops began to fall from her glowing red eyes.
“Now, now, don’t cry. You’ve got to save those happy tears for Mikado and Kida,” Mika joked warmly. “If some other car looks at us, they’ll think that Togusa’s band of thugs have kidnapped a couple of girls.”
“You know, I don’t appreciate that you only think of me as the ringleader in those situations, rather than Kadota…,” Togusa said.
The rest of the car laughed awkwardly at that. Anri smiled, too, and felt a resolve form within her.
She would find a way to bring Mikado Ryuugamine and Masaomi Kida within this ring of friendly connections she had now.
Maybe neither of the two boys wanted that. Maybe it was only her own selfish desire.
But this time, she was going to be selfish.
And with that honest admission to herself, she retracted the Saika blade into her palm.
✦ ✦ ✦
But in that moment, she felt as if she heard Saika’s voice again.
“You’re going to discard me? No matter how you struggle, you will never escape from me. Don’t forget, it’s my role to love people.”
Anri smiled to herself and treated these words, mixed among the sea of love curses, as nothing more than a misheard statement at the worst.
Someday, I hope to love people with you. Me and you…learning to love in the truest sense.
The curses of love stopped for just an instant, then Saika’s voice resumed.
“I keep telling you. Humanity belongs to me.”
The tone was sulking, but Anri didn’t detect any force behind it.
As usual, Saika’s curses reverberated throughout her mind.
Saika’s intelligent words. Were they just an illusion that Anri’s own mind was creating? Or were they Saika’s true personality speaking to her? She did not know.
But it was odd that, even before Anri got into the van and admitted her secret to these people, she had felt the distance between herself and Saika was smaller than before.
It seemed that Saika was happy that more people had accepted the existence of the cursed blade without having to use those accursed words of love—but again, Anri would never know whether that was just a trick of her own mind or not.
✦ ✦ ✦
The hollow sound of hands clapping brought Anri’s consciousness back to the interior of the van.
Yumasaki had struck his hands together and did a wriggling little dance with his upper half. He said to her, “At any rate, now this means that Anri has officially become a member of the guild!”
“…‘Gild’?”
“The Adventurers Guild. That’s the group that Dr. Kishitani put together to solve this problem!”
“Oh…”
Anri wasn’t very familiar with the English word guild, but she was definitely on board with solving the problem, so she let it slide in this case.
“The problem is that the founder, Dr. Kishitani himself, was abducted by a mysterious woman in glasses who produced wires from her hands. Let me tell you, though, those wires were really cool.”
“Huh?” That sounded to Anri as if it could refer only to one woman. “Do you mean…Miss Kujiragi?”
Suddenly, the inside of the van stirred, and all the attention gathered on Anri again.
“You know Kasane Kujiragi?” demanded Namie.
Anri nodded. “Yes, I got her business card. It only has her phone number, though…”
“Card?!”
The others murmured even more, but Anri remembered something else about that meeting and added, “Oh…I’m sorry. The card is still in my schoolbag, so…it’s at home.”
There was no saying whether Kujiragi would answer the phone, but given the circumstances, that was valuable information.
“What do you think? Should we go get it?” Togusa asked.
“Nah, let’s pick up Karisawa first. It won’t be too late after that,” Kadota suggested.
It was then that Anri remembered another tidbit. “Oh! Karisawa has one, too!”
“Has one what?”
“Karisawa-san got a business card, too, because she was going to join the cosplay club. Miss Kujiragi, I mean.”
Even Kadota looked shocked by this. His eyebrows rose. Now it was the turn of everyone else in the van to look bewildered.
“Cosplay…club?”
✦ ✦ ✦
Near Russia Sushi
✦ ✦ ✦
“…”
In the chaos of the night district, a red-eyed Karisawa walked slowly onward.
But she hadn’t been sliced by Saika.
No, she was just pretending to be a child of Saika and walking right through the town, out in the open.
✦ ✦ ✦
Fifteen minutes ago, feeling that she would soon be caught, Karisawa decided to take a gamble.
She went into the cosmetics she carried around in her usual backpack for cosplay purposes, pulled out red contact lenses for cosplaying, and stuck them in her eyes. They didn’t cover the white of her eyes, so if you paid attention, it would be obvious right away.
But she cleverly narrowed her eyes to keep them showing only the red irises and walked nice and slow. Thankfully, the other red-eyed people around only briefly glanced her way from time to time but otherwise passed without reaction.
✦ ✦ ✦
Karisawa was very lucky.
The children and grandchildren of Saika could sense the presence of other instances of Saika, if not as strongly as their parents could. But in the midst of a crowd of Saikas like this, the haze of all that aura made it much harder to pick out the negative space of one ordinary human.
A Saika mother—the original one from which the others stemmed—might have finer control of the senses, but to the grandchildren whom Nasujima and Haruna had ordered to cut any human entering this area, the ultimate means of detecting Saika spawn from humans was essentially just the color of the eyes.
And though Karisawa wasn’t aware of it, she was also lucky that the Blue Squares had shown up and drawn much of the overall group’s attention. She kept walking down Otowa Street beneath the raised expressway toward the Sunshine area when she noticed something new.
Whoa, there’s a ton of people right outside Russia Sushi. Are Simon and the boss okay in there?
Despite her concern, however, she attempted to pass by it—until she spotted a familiar face and came to a stop.
It was Anri Sonohara’s friend, the one she had met in the hospital cafeteria earlier in the day. She was crouched down on the street outside of Russia Sushi and seemed to be acting differently than the other red-eyed people.
I wonder what the matter is. Maybe she’s still in her right mind?
It was hard to tell from this distance, so Karisawa tried her best to approach slowly, avoiding notice. If the girl wasn’t affected, there might be a way to sneak over and help her get away, she thought considerately.
As she approached, she noticed a man talking very excitedly next to the girl. On the other side of him was a boy with normal eyes, looking terrified at the scene around him. The trio clearly stuck out amid the crowd.
What…is that?
Karisawa approached from their blind spot. About half of the group around was focused on Russia Sushi, and the other half was looking at the exterior of Tokyu Hands for some reason. She didn’t have to worry about them spotting her.
Keeping her eyes narrowed, Karisawa got close enough to hear the man speaking. That was when she heard a name she recognized come out of his mouth.